WEDDELL'S SEAL. 23 



up a recurved form as it dries, and roughens the whole coat by gradually standing up 

 and curling backwards. This is a marked feature in the hair of Weddell's Seal, and 

 was very noticeable in the various uses to which the dried skin was put upon the .ship, 

 such as the making of slippers, knife sheaths, gaiters, and so on ; for when dry 

 there was a good wire-haired furry skin, but no sooner was the hair exposed to 

 moisture than the sleek and shiny texture of the wet seal was immediately reproduced. 

 This change in drying, particularly from salt water, may have much to do with the 

 apparent irritability of the skin of the basking seal. 



Of the use of the fore limb when out of water there is little more to be said. The 

 claws are not used offensively when the animal is disturbed to the same extent that 

 they are in Phoca vitulina, for example. In the latter the whole action is that of a 

 cat, but Weddell's Seal has not the same power that is possessed by Phoca vitulina, 

 or Ph. fcetida, or even Halichcerus, of bringing the fore limb right forward from the 

 shoulder. The limb is more perfectly webbed, and the web is much more closely con- 

 tinuous with the skin of the body than in these species, that is to say, there is in 

 Leptonychotes less of an arm or wrist than in these northern seals. 



This being so, one would expect that the nails would have lost something of their 

 efficiency and of their size, but this is not the case. They are comparatively long and 

 well formed, and reach well beyond the fleshy part of the digits. In the hinder 

 limb the nails are not so well grown, nor are they in any sense functional. The nails 

 of the fore limb, on the other hand, are, as I have said, constantly in use for scratching. 

 In the infant the fore limbs are far more constantly brought forward than they are 

 in the adult, and in this way the young Leptonychotes approximates to the true Phocinse 

 and Halichoerus. In the fore limb there is free power of flexion and extension as well 

 as of abduction in all the digits, and the same may he seen in the hinder limbs. 



There is, moreover, a very remarkable amount of precision in the power of 

 directing the touch, and this is seen in the accuracy with which the apparently clumsy 

 limb brings a single nail to bear on the irritable spot, whether it be on the face or head, 

 on the breast or abdomen, or on the other flippers either Itefore or behind. 



All these remarks deal with Weddell's Seal on land, or rather on ice and snow. 

 Certainly it is the most land-frequenting of all the Antarctic seals, indeed, it is never to 

 be found in any numbers away from the actual shore, or, at any rate, from fast ice. This 

 littoral habit, however, is not a primitive one retained by Weddell's Seal alone, whilst 

 others, its near relations, have taken to the open seas ; it is a habit of secondary 

 development, into which the animal has fallen in these regions through a wish to 

 shun the enemies that molest it in the open sea. 



Few seals are more fully adapted to a pelagic life than Leptonychotes, and every 

 feature of the animal helps to support this view, especially if we watcli first the easy 

 motion of a seal in the water, its clumsy eftbrts to land, and the still more clumsy gait 

 that follows when at last the landing is effected. When there has been no need for 

 haste a seal has Ijeen seen to make ten unsuccessful eftbrts tr> land on ice which was 





